Nov 19


“We are the music-makers”

by Terry 19 November 2005


One of my favorite parts of the original Willy Wonka movie is when Gene Wilder says “We are the music-makers, we are the dreamers of dreams.” But until recently, I didn’t know the source. Here is the complete poem from which the quote comes. It speaks for artists everywhere.

Ode
by Arthur O’Shaughnessy [1844-1881]

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion art empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample in empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth.
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

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5 Comments

5 Responses to ““We are the music-makers””

  1. Jeff Hess on November 20th, 2005 4:32 pm

    Shalom Terry,

    I have had two Willy Wonka quotes as wave files on my computers for more than 10 years. The first is Windows start-up sound:

    Inside this room all of my dreams become realities, and some of my realities become dreams.

    The second is my Windows shut-down sound, the quote from the O’Shaughnessy poem. I think I first learned of the connection from All Things Considered.

    B’shalom,

    Jeff  (Quote)

  2. Terry on November 20th, 2005 4:37 pm

    Jeff,
    Would you be willing to upload them to your site and put a link here in comments, in case anyone would like to use them?  (Quote)

  3. Satellite Heart » Blog Archive » Carnival of Speculum Issue 1 on January 16th, 2006 9:10 pm
  4. eric on September 29th, 2008 4:20 pm

    i thought this was the whole poem too for many years and loved it and then discoverd in an old book that it is only part of much longer poem

    here it is

    http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1540.html  (Quote)

  5. Kevin Matsil on October 30th, 2009 6:48 am

    I have this quote on a banner in the fron of my classroom and 6th graders by the time they leave my room “get it”. Thanks for the entire poem.  (Quote)

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